An industry of Bums, Vagrants, and A-Number One

Our bum is the best bum When I worked in fly shops I was surprised and unsettled at the “us versus them” culture. Somehow my working for “Shop A” meant I couldn’t refer customers to “Shop B”, as my coworkers quickly taught me they were unworthy, mostly stereo and car salesmen, criminals all …

Then when I started guiding, I was told the same held true for guides. Both groups were grizzled, weather-beaten, and smelled bad … both tied flies and fished as often as the other, both had a quick smile and a firm handshake, yet it was explained our guides practiced the One True Religion – and them other fellows were Pagans and idolaters.

Eventually I ascribed this uneasy state of affairs to the natural discomfort one feels when seeing another angler on a stretch of water you had to yourself. How their sudden appearance brings cities, work, laws, debt, politics, the stock market, and everything else you’d fled Friday afternoon … with them.

Not holding with conventional wisdom, I nodded vigorously when the list of our merits and their shortcomings was recited, then tried to stay clear of any Mason-Dixon line, real or imagined.

Entering the work force I cast aside the angling industry as one of many childish things of my youth, and found that in the company of doctors, lawyers, plumbers, and steamfitters, some small vocational distrust existed, but nothing on the scale the fly fishing industry boasted.

In fact, antisocial types were frowned upon, and I had to unlearn habits developed in the fly industry, like drying my sneakers in the lunch room microwave, or dipping the same chip twice after idly clipping my toenails.

Perplexed, I filed this workplace oddity away as one life’s many unknowns, and was glad that in my new career I wouldn’t have to worry what the carpenter next to me thought of my nail hammering abilities, or whether the hygienist working nearby loathed the way I scraped teeth …

… and with my many weekends I hovered around the sport and its many facets and noted that while things around me had changed, this part of fly fishing hadn’t budged.

… so I’m on the Internet reading about fishing in Europe, and am jarred when some fellow lights into a minor fishing dignitary for the placement of his sunglasses. Either they were of the wrong type, were worn at a too-rakish angle, or someone was a poser – and they’d seen him at some show, and he was rude and …

Enough.

I’ve rethought my earlier idea, and have a different theory. Instead of us versus them, the issue is we secretly resent angling professionals and anyone making a living in the angling arts, knowing that if we chucked all our responsibilities and opted for the fish bum lifestyle, our bum would make their bum look civilized in the comparison.

A “bum” is the only vocation that requires no credential or course of study. A “fish bum” is therefore just a fellow with the courage to dump his job and its mindless toil, jettison the Old Bag and her brood of kids, and drop out of society.

… we’d be a better bum than the guy whose article dominates the fish mag we’re reading, better than the guy clicking through the slide show above us on the podium, and more believable than the nasal fellow who needs a bass boat to make his bum film-worthy.

Which is why we insist we’re alone on the One True Path, knowing the other fellows secretly miss their latte, still covet 401K’s, their toothbrushes, and the approval of society.

Liberal Menace responsible for most fishing ills and the Economy

liberal_moron … and I do so in good humor, despite blood rushing to my cheek, as I’ve been called “liberal” about as often as the Fair Sex has called me, “fat”, “disgusting”, or “slovenly.”

I’ve always associated the “Liberal” tag as nothing more than describing someone that lives on the coast, or resides in a “blue” state – which pretty much amounts to the same thing …

An analysis of 36 years’ worth of polling data indicates that confidence in science as an institution has steadily declined among Americans who consider themselves conservatives, while confidence levels have been at steadier levels for other ideological groups.

-via MSNBC’s Cosmic Log

But after all the research is complete and opinion weighed, can we blame those untidy DNA fragments that emasculate our steelhead and salmon on us, the liberal menace?

Meaning, us liberals, and our unswerving devotion to science, are the root cause of fish hatcheries and therefore responsible for the “put and take” philosophy espoused by State and Federal wildlife agencies?

Say it ain’t so, Babe!

So what does this mean for the role of science in setting national policy? "In a political climate in which all sides do not share a basic trust in science, scientific evidence no longer is viewed as a politically neutral factor in judging whether a public policy is good or bad,"

Which explains why so much of the Science of late has been either Good or Bad, with little in between. Nor does it bode well for future efforts to set aside unspoiled pieces of Pristine, given those listening are ignoring a lot of the evidence and testimony, assuming it’s no longer impartial.

Hard times coming for conservation organizations, whose message will resonate with us coastal types, and simply be “more liberal BS” for the warm states.

Brook Trout victimized by Heat and Performance anxiety

With all the hormones in the water column you’d think us old guys and our yen for little blue pills would be able to pee a little stability into native Brook Trout populations, at least enough to overcome the ill effects of global warming …

New research suggests an increase of as little as a single degree in median summertime temperatures can delay Brook Trout spawning by as much as a week – worse is there’s less fish with the urge …

"These trout can’t build gonads in the summer," Kraft said. "They’re burning more energy to survive, so they don’t have energy to produce eggs. The warmer it gets, the fewer fish are spawning; some just give up."

Makes you wonder whether those female hormones that are rumored to be in the drinking water and the root cause of gender-bending fish populations, aren’t part of some sinister Amazonian world domination gambit, where they’re sprinkling extra into the water supply just so’s we’ll sit still when they talk window treatments.

Guys never pay attention to warnings on labels, and would gladly swallow handfuls of turgidity simply to brag about what deeds were accomplished during the all-important “… if this condition persists for more than four hours …” medical miracle session.

Now that we’re killing off all those planted cockroaches, the Rainbow Trout, in favor of native Brookies, it’s nice to know we’re haven’t lost our sense of timing nor humor, knowing we’re hoping for a sustainable trout population by adding more eunuchs.

There’s hope if they’re finally ditching light beer

Can it be that the root cause of declining outdoors participation isn’t Nintendo, nor the warm confines of the couch, rather it’s a lack of appreciation for straight liquor?

beer_Fishing

Campfires and the out-of-doors have always been associated with a return to the simple, unsophisticated life of our adventurer-hunter-gatherer ancestors, and the measure of what we can do without is stressed as the new masculinity.

… or at least that was my Poppa’s take on his Poppa’s lectures …

It didn’t matter if it was battery-operated, solar-powered, or threw off enough BTU’s to render tents and bags unnecessary, unless it was hand-cranked and raised blisters, you didn’t get to bring it.

What we didn’t take into account was how the younger crowd would be so much smarter than us. Our generation watched Gus Grissom punch out early, a president take the rap for covert misdeeds, and discovered that John Wayne wore four inch lifts, and we unknowingly communicated our mistrust of authority to our kids …

… who question everything taught them by Poppa, including dumping both beer and the out-of-doors in preference for faux-sophistication and exotic cocktails.

Baby boomers prefer wine, while millennials like exotic cocktails. Compared with those beverages, light beer is about as exciting as a glass of milk.

– via MSN.com

It’s not rocket science to understand that juggling Grenadine while filching a fistful of capers out of a darkened container at the campfire, could wind up as a finger full of Pautske’s dipped in the last of the good liquor, and “shaken not stirred” won’t prevent your pals from spitting up all over their sleeping gear …

Start by giving your child an appreciation for straight liquor, then work your way up to mosquito bites, skinned knees, and sandwiches with sand in them …

In Spring a young man’s thoughts turn to Invasives?

death_rayOnly recently recovered from the attempt to make Striped Bass the killer of all salmonids, and now on the eve of my Spring Shad orgy, West Coast scientists are suddenly spraying my favorite quarry with the invasive label.

… and while they readily admit that most of the science on American Shad has been done on the East Coast, and very little is known of our Western invasive cousin, now that we’ve extincted the Pacific Salmon, we’re sure to find the American Shad had a hand in it.

All of which causes me to burst into tears, given that Science can never bring themselves to admit we paved, screwed, and ate, anything that was tasty – and are even now grinding up and coloring everything that isn’t  ..

So the last big anadromous fishery left on the Pacific Coast, needs to be kilt off because they weren’t invited? How about you restore some urban stream to a healthy population of salmon and then we’ll talk – and not before.

This month Fisheries Magazine features a couple of articles on the American Shad, the first relating the efforts to get them here, and the second relating to how their spread along the Pacific Coast might have altered the environment for our Pacific Salmon, how they may have had a hand in both helping and extincting same.

Young shad dine on similar freshwater foods as young salmon, young shad may provide more food for known salmon predators like my beloved Northern Pikeminnow, allowing them to survive in greater numbers to prey upon young salmon, and Shad may have been host to saltwater parasites that spread to both salmon and humans in freshwater.

But they’re not really all that sure of any of it …

In fact, it is out of concern specifically for salmon that biologists now seriously contemplate the ecological role of shad in the Columbia River. For some, the “scientific” response has been “guilty until proven innocent” (Simberloff 2007), with calls to eliminate shad above Bonneville Dam (Snake River Salmon Recovery Team [SRSRT] 1994; National Marine Fisheries Service [NMFS] 1995). Though some hypotheses have been advanced to suggest that shad may negatively affect Pacific coastal ecosystems (e.g., Haskell et al. 2001; Harvey and Kareiva 2005; Hershberger et al. 2010), the specific interactions with salmon remain largely untested hypotheses, and the a priori vilification of shad in the absence of supporting data constitutes speculation and opinion, not established fact (J. H.Brown and Sax 2007). The presence of shad in the Columbia River may actually be a mixed blessing.

… and on the converse, because young shad are numerically superior to any other life form in these rivers at certain times of the year, science suggests they may have a beneficial role – serving as a food source for young salmon.

One thing’s for sure, something is eating something else – and we’re eating that …

What science there is on the Pacific contingent of the American Shad is focused on the west coast’s greatest rivers, the Columbia and the Sacramento. While much of these articles dealt with impoundments of the Columbia, some insights into local fish were new (to us anglers) …

Specifically, Smith (1895) reported the tendency
of Sacramento River shad to remain in the San Francisco Bay
region throughout the year, with some proportion of the population foregoing the typical marine migration altogether. Smith (1895) also reported San Francisco Bay shad to be in spawning condition from December to August. This is considerably longer than the source stock used for introduction.

Outside of being enormously fun to catch, ask any two anglers about Shad behavior and you’re liable to get mostly rumor and innuendo, exposing the dearth of information that exists on our favorite saltwater racehorse.

/end Science.

/begin Opinion.

I can’t help note how restoring fisheries always starts with us killing something else. Actual restoration is bestial hard, nor can I point to a single river or pond and say, “ … this was once terrible and has been completely restored.”

There’s a reason for that.

If we are ever to be successful restoring anything, then we have to manage it for eternity, not for some well meaning conservation organization to cut a ribbon, dust its hands and pronounce, “we’re done.”

Restoration is never done, and as soon as you lose resolve or run out of money, all your hard work slips into the Abyss.

… which is why when I hear the Rotenone call, “Nuke it from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure” – I get all squirrely, as killing has always been the easiest part.

It’s my belief that all of our conservation organizations added together, combined with all the awesome might of the federal wildlife agencies, have restored  … nothing.

Not a single lake, stream, or rivulet.

Surely, they are busy restoring all kinds of things, but they will never be done – and so long as they allow us fishermen to fish, or developers to build, we’ll being spilling something new into the water that’ll prove bad for fish, and trigger some new species collapse that’ll need yet another task force, and even more money.

… yet every so often we get an evolutionary “lucky.” Some unloved, unwanted cockroach that repopulates water too poor to sustain what used to live there, and we gash ourselves and claim, “ … how goddamn dare they.”

Science busies itself uncorking Death Rays and Rotenone to rid itself of the interloper, knowing all the time that it’s easier to nuke some bland filet than muster the political clout to cite the BP refinery upstream that kilt all the old stuff …

Scientists in aggregate are smart as hell. Unfortunately within the gleaming walls of their laboratory they practice Hollywood Science, pure, pristine, and untrammeled. Reality-based science is called “politics”, and those fellows aren’t so smart, and are often careless and greedy.

A lot more of us would have made Harvard, that’s for sure

Spicoli It was San Francisco in the mid-Seventies … the Vietnam War had ended two years earlier, so there was plenty of Peace, the Castro District was filling rapidly, so there was oodles of Love, and the Haight-Ashbury had degenerated from counter-cultural nexus to outright Heroin addiction, so there was plenty of Dope …

… and the best class in High School … the only class we dared not cut was Foods.

That’s where those in search of a boost to their Grade Point Average went – after being bitch-slapped by Math, Science, or English.

Foods … first you went out back to spark a Fatty with your pals, then you hustled yourself to Foods, where you’d gorge on half baked chocolate cupcakes, or Oatmeal cookies made with Cornmeal, or something sweet or fattening that had been stepped on, undercooked, or someone had spit in when you weren’t looking …

With my youth as backdrop, why is it only now that I can move to South Carolina, letter in fishing and score a four year scholarship, plus dangle the Homecoming Queen on my arm – instead of her fawning over that troglodyte linebacker with his single eyebrow ?

“If it was recognized as a varsity sport, then your benefits would be you can letter in it, you can get scholarships,” said Camden Fishing Club member Catie Charles, a freshman. “But right now you don’t. You just go out there for fun and nobody really notices.”

– via Fox News.com

If I could’ve fished my way through 2nd period, Foods class would have been a distant memory, and we might’ve damaged less brain cells that were a Food’s prerequisite (not to mention the occasional brush with ptomaine poisoning).

“I heard that throwing 150 casts is equivalent to throwing 100 pitches in a game,” said Fishing Club member Carson Morgan. And, according to their coach, serious anglers often make 500 casts in a day.

… and based on the above whopper, it’s obvious those kids are learning the all important ethics lessons of fishing, truth before all else.

As bass boats and terminal tackle would be in obvious short supply, we could ensure all the loafers, dopers, and riff-raff avoided class by requiring participants to strip and don athletic supporters.

(Wild rolling of eyes … Strip and expose my video game sculpted flesh to public scrutiny, OhMyGawd, anything but that …)

Heroes, every last one …

I don’t believe a word of it myself, mostly because I buy into every conspiracy theory possible … and … they were replaying Spartacus in my hotel room last night …

The incident occurred on state Route 124 south of Hillsboro and involved a truck  hauling a tank filled with rainbow trout en route to Rocky Fork Lake.

The truck was about 20 miles north of the Kincaid Hatchery when the tank fell off, according to a hatchery spokesman.

The human occupants of the truck were unhurt, but the fish are considered a loss according to Tim Parrett, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

– via NBC4i.com

I figure all them 9” -11” fish realized they were cannon fodder anyways, and like the desperate heroism of Flight 93, rushed the driver in a bid for freedom.

Thinking they were gnawing through the brake lines, they got the Covad mounts instead …

Took a week to clear the freeway, but only because the clean up crew were limited to “five per day, ten in possession.”

Maybe in addition to underachieving they possess small finger skills and great patience

Robert Conrad does Pappy Boyington Naturally I’d rather not dwell on the fact that I was right and you was horribly wrong … actually I would, but I’d exhaust the subject of my presumed greatness in about three seconds.

Just long enough for your next tired exhale …

Now every recruitment drive to enlist them thick-witted kids of yours into the ranks of Outdoorsmen, highlights our collective shortcomings as parents and teachers, as due to our inability to pay down our mortgage, they’re now known as “Generation Stuck.”

What’s so damning is in addition to their feet under your table well into their thirties, you’ve had twice as long to teach them respect for the Woods and fly fishing as your Dad, and whiffed horribly …

But Generation Y has become Generation Why Bother. The Great Recession and the still weak economy make the trend toward risk aversion worse. Children raised during recessions ultimately take fewer risks with their investments and their jobs. Even when the recession passes, they don’t strive as hard to find new jobs, and they hang on to lousy jobs longer.

– via the BusinessInsider.com

… me, I was only thinking we should recruit alternate-lifestyle anglers hoping to spare you the microscope of public opinion and scorn. I recognized that the tone deaf little weasel that shares your name is expert in joysticks, Hellfire missiles, and targeting Toyota trucks filled with insurgents, only he can’t hold down a job long enough to buy his next video game …

Sure. My little funny generated plenty of hushed whispers and death threats, but that Politically Correct Lightning bolt of Death, intent on cleaving me from topknot to breastbone, ain’t going to happen. Political Correctness was invented so you didn’t have to take a stand on any subject at a cocktail party, nor did you have to reveal you’d never read Dickens, Henry James*, and the only Conrad you knew swaggered his way through Baa Baa Black Sheep …

(*yuck)

Six hundred things edited out of Fly Fisherman as the Zip Code wasn’t exotic enough No 311 & No 288

Flat tinsel is one of the many thousands of fly tying tasks that are intuitive in concept and unduly difficult in practice. Tinsel in past decades was flat metal, which sliced through fingertips with only slightly more resistance than tying thread.

The switch to Mylar eased the bloodletting and ended tarnish, but had the same problems with its application. Now you had to remember to tie in the color opposite what the body would be, as one side was silver and the other gold, which would result in the only cost savings two hundred years of fly tying has ever produced.

gold_side_facing

Figure 1: Gold side facing you means the fly will have a silver body

Tinsel bodies are quite common in trout streamers and steelhead flies, and can be tamed with three simple tricks; always use the widest tinsel available to cover the most with the least number of wraps, never overlap turns, and always double wrap the body, never attempt to single wrap the fly.

Tinsel is cheap – there’s little advantage in hoarding it.

Never overlap turns of tinsel

Figure 2: No turns overlap

If even the slightest overlap occurs it will create a “bubble” or air gap that will eventually slip to reveal the thread wraps beneath. Always wrap the first layer so you can see thread color between turns.

Final layer added, no overlap

Figure 3: Final layer of tinsel added

There are no overlaps on the upper layer of tinsel either. Because the two layers are at right angles to one another, no thread is visible despite our leaving rather obvious gaps on the bottom layer.

In the above “Comet” style of steelhead fly, I used an under-the-tail-wrap to change direction and bring the second layer forward to the eye. This makes the change of direction seamless, and lifts the tail away from the hook bend.

As an additional step, one that I’ve been asked about, is how the “tip-first” style of hackling subsurface flies can accommodate a second color.

Comet’s have a mixed orange and yellow hackle, and “folding” hackle so it drapes back naturally, precludes a second color – given that winding it forward would bind the first to the shank.

Instead, treat both feathers as if they were a single feather. Size the hackles by spreading the barbs perpendicular to the stems with your fingers. Place one on top of the other, and using either the thumb (top feather) or forefinger (bottom feather) slide the two along each other until the stroked barbules are the same length, as below:

slide the two feathers until the barbules are the same length

Figure 4: Both orange and yellow fibers match in length

A better view below, showing the two hackles now tied in, yet spread from the stem so you can see they’re of identical length …

A better look at the two feathers barbules

When gripped thusly, the forefinger controls the tension on the bottom feather, and the thumb controls stem tension on the top color. Note how the stroked perpendicular barbules are of the same raw length.

Now all that remains is to keep the stems together under equal tension when you stroke them at right angles with your scissors, or saliva equipped fingers, whatever is your favorite tool for moving the fibers to the same side.

Fibers now stroked roughly to the same side

Figure 5: Fibers stroked roughly to the same side

I use the edge of my scissors scraped towards me to break the backs of all the fibers and push them to a single side. Fingers finish the task, by stroking anything unruly back into line. Note how close the two stems are kept, they might as well be a single stem.

Now wind two forward

Figure 6: Winding both colors forward

This technique ensures the proper balance of colors as one turn of orange yields one turn of yellow, and the mixed color is exactly half of each. Adjust the stems over lumps or bumps using the finger that controls the wayward stem – bring it back in line with the other so they wind as a single object.

The completed comet style

Figure 7: The completed “Comet” style

This style of hackle does away with the overly large head caused by wrapping over the “dry fly style” hackling and forcing it down and over the back of the fly. A fly tied with this style hackle can have a head no larger than a trout fly if done correctly.

Note how the sizing we did at the beginning yields flues of equal length for both colors? No more guesswork needed to pick two hackles, simply slide them around until the flue length matches.

Using the right “style” of hackle for the task is a very important distinction a tyer makes on his path to mastery. When he understands why he abandons “butt-first dry fly hackle” for his underwater flies, it’s a real milestone in his formative process.